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Six weeks after four new members were elected to Calgary’s city council, elected officials say another stab at secondary suite reform is imminent. And unlike many failed attempts by previous councils to fix a system seen as time-consuming, embarrassing and bizarre, some on council believe the looming reform will be approved. “I am absolutely certain […]

A 22-home island in the middle of a man-made lake in southeast Calgary will become the city’s first gated enclave in more than a decade. Calgary Planning Commission’s decision on Thursday rejected a 2001 council directive banning gated communities, and set what some commissioners worry is a precedent. But Hopewell Residential had already had council’s […]

It’s good for Calgary Transit to scale back frequency on less-used routes, said a councillor for one of Calgary’s fastest-growing wards as the city confirmed the budget includes a small but outright cut in bus service next year. Calgary buses and trains will roll for 10,000 fewer hours in 2015 than this year. That’s a relatively puny cut in an overall system of just under 2.8-million service hours, but comes amid continued population growth and hikes to both fares and property taxes — the two key ingredients of Calgary Transit revenue.

City council should focus on its core duties by sticking with a 14-councillor system and dealing less with minutiae of local concerns, former mayor Al Duerr advised council Monday. It’s not clear yet whether council will follow or reject the advice of Duerr’s special commission report on the question. Members want to decide on that at a special council meeting Nov. 14.

Neighbours should be the jury that determines whether suites go ahead, rather than the 15 men and women of council, say two councillors willing to end the zoning restrictions on suites in many areas. Peter Demong and Shane Keating say they’re willing to eliminate the need for homeowners in some districts to plead their case at council public hearings — potentially creating a long-elusive council majority for Calgary-wide suite reform.

The groups in favour of allowing secondary suites in all Calgary neighbourhoods include the key organizations for post-secondary students, businesses, poverty issues, conservative libertarians, home builders, developers and economic development. Groups on the debate’s con side?

Fortunes have improved for Calgarians who want to be legal hen-raisers, four years after council voted 11-3 against permitting backyard coops. Only four of those 2010 skeptics remain on council, and one of them — Coun. Ray Jones — wants to help lead the way on resurrecting plans for an urban chickens pilot project.

After being sent back to the drawing board, city officials have drafted a new proposal that would limit the cost of transit passes for low-income seniors, but restrict them to travelling outside of peak hours. A local citizen’s group is opposing the new proposal, which will go to the standing policy committee on transportation and transit for discussion on Friday.

A city councillor who had planned to push for the addition of hundreds of new taxi licences in an effort to address Calgary’s peak-hour cab woes has backed down in the face of criticism from drivers. Coun. Ray Jones — who last month said he would soon bring forward a notice of motion calling for the creation of 310 new taxi licences — said he has decided to hold off after being “inundated” with calls from cab drivers.

City engineers are predicting another trade-off when downtown bike lines replace car space next year: hundreds more cyclists get safe routes, while drivers alongside them could experience about a minute more of peak-hour congestion. A new report lays out the targets that define success for the approved one-year trial for the network of barrier-separated cycle tracks downtown. Cyclist volumes will double or triple but collision rates will drop or stay flat, while businesses shouldn’t suffer.

A warning from Calgary’s Chamber of Commerce that local businesses are threatened by tax and fee hikes should prompt council to “trim the fat” from city operations, said Coun. Joe Magliocca. “If I ran my corporation like I ran city hall I’d be bankrupt, to be honest with you,” said the rookie Ward 2 councillor Friday, responding to an unusually outspoken letter the chamber sent to mayor and council earlier this week.

A three-route network of separated bike lanes is coming, after council’s big decision Monday. That was the tricky part. Now, where the bicycle rubber meets the road — figuring out project details, especially after council secured some compromises in the original plan:

Several city councillors who don’t support Calgary’s downtown cycle track project in its current form said they will vote ‘yes’ Monday if the proposal is amended. Until now, council has appeared split over whether to create a network of four barrier-separated cycle lanes in the city’s core on a one-year trial basis, for the cost of at least $9.3 million.

After three straight years of 7.5-per-cent water rate hikes and 13.5-per-cent wastewater fee hikes, Mayor Naheed Nenshi expects council will do more of the same to pay for upcoming plant and pipe system expansions.

Calgary’s civilian police commission has no issue with the police service assigning officers to work on Premier Alison Redford’s security detail. The commission said Friday it considers the move part of the day-to-day operations of the police service, which are outside its oversight.

For much less than the cost of the west LRT line, council committed Friday to build seven new bus transitway and frequent service routes throughout Calgary. The $889-million network of bus-only lanes and special routes will be complete by around 2021. It will bring the first major crosstown service to a transit system dominated by the downtown, and serve in most places as a low-cost alternative to LRT — or, in the case of the Centre Street and southeast, as a precursor to light rail.

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